1. Field of the Invention
This invention pertains to the field of aircraft cabin entertainment systems and/or networks.
2. Description of the Related Art
Aircraft employ cabin entertainment systems from which passengers of the aircraft may enjoy in-flight entertainment provided on a commonly viewed screen found on a bulkhead or ceiling or an individually viewed screen found, for instance, or in the armrest of a passenger seat. Many cabin entertainment systems employ computer operating systems that are proprietary in nature; that is, they may have been developed by an entertainment system vendor and/or owner or operator of the aircraft.
Although these types of cabin entertainment systems have proven useful and have enjoyed a long history of utilization, the opportunity to employ new media technologies is now available. With the increased usage of portable electronic devices (singularly, “PED”) such as tablet devices and smartphones, passengers of aircraft (e.g., business jets) may view the content stored in each of these; however, the content from which the passenger may be entertained may be limited to the content stored in his or her PED, and he or she may not have access to the content stored in a content library maintained on board by the owner or operator of the aircraft. Moreover, the operating system employed by the cabin entertainment system may not be compatible with a mobile operating system employed by the personal device(s).